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 Sermon > Official Service |
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Title |
Spirit, soul and body(26) - The 3rd lecture on - Spirit, soul and body(5) |
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Speaker |
Rev. Jaerock Lee |
Bible |
Gal 5:19-21 |
Date |
2004-11-07 |
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[Scripture]
Galatians 5:19-21
"Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, [20] idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, [21] envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God."
[Introduction]
Dear brothers and sisters, many people praise God and confess their love when God's grace falls on them. They give thanks with tears and decide to give their lives, and there are many people who actually become faithful and devote their lives.
But God cannot recognize us saying, "You truly love me," only with faithfulness, enthusiasm, or confession of lips.
1 John 5:3 says, "For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome."
John 14:21 also says, "He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him."
If we have true faith and love God, we will do what God commands. Even though we confess our love and praise God with tears, our confession cannot be true if we do not keep God's commandments.
It is the evidence of true faith to do what God tells us to do, not do what He tells us not to do, throw away what He tells us to throw away, and keep what He tells us to keep.
I hope you will love God not only with words and tongue but with action and truthfulness by living a holy life to show your evidence of loving God.
Then, God will love you so much and give you abundant blessings as a proof of His love.
In the name of the Lord, I hope you will understand God's will more clearly through the message, and put it into practice.
[Main]
Dear brothers and sisters, members who are attending the service through the satellite all over the country, members of branch churches, local sanctuaries, Light and Salt mission, Restaurant Mission, members who are attending the service on the Internet all over the world, [children of Sunday school] Today, I will talk about jealousies, outbursts of wrath, dissensions, and heresies, which is faction.
First, jealousy is to have discomfort with, stay away from, and hate somebody when we feel that person is better than ourselves.
If this gets too much, it becomes envy. Jealousy and envy cause many kinds of actions that are intended to harm others.
Anger filled with evil, quarrelling, dissensions, and even a murder could be caused.
Many works of the flesh including envy are derived from one root called jealousy.
Dear brothers and sisters, jealousy is such an abominable sin that kills our spirit.
Proverbs 14:30 says, "A tranquil mind gives life to the flesh, but passion makes the bones rot." Those who are jealous of others will suffer from bone-rotting pain only because other people are well off.
In the Bible, Leah and Rachel are jealous of each other and give hard time to Jacob although they were sisters. Genesis 30:1 says, "When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister; and she said to Jacob, 'Give me children, or I shall die!'" Rachel complained to Jacob who was not responsible.
This kind of trouble affected their children later.
When Joseph, son of Rachel was loved by his father more than other sons, the other ten brothers were jealous of Joseph and wanted to kill him.
Finally, they sold their young brother to a Gentile merchant. They did not have compassion on their own brother but sold him. It was because of jealousy.
Also, the first murder of mankind committed by Cain to kill his younger brother Abel was after all because of jealousy.
1 John 3:15 says, "All who hate a brother or sister are murderers, and you know that murderers do not have eternal life abiding in them." Jealousy brings about hatred and even a murder. This happens many times through the human history.
When you check yourself, if you still have remaining root of jealousy, even though you have not committed a murder or a very evil act because of that, I urge you to pull out even the root.
The easiest way to find out your jealousy is whether or not you have any kind of discomfort when others are well off.
You might think, 'that person has this kind of shortcoming and weak point, but why is he doing well and loved by others?' Furthermore, you might come to hate that person, want to take what he has, and trample his happiness.
It is also from your jealousy to compare other people's happiness and your situation, and become heartbroken or sad. "That person is acknowledged by others like that. He is so happy like that. But what am I? What am I doing? Am I only this much?" saying these things, you become disappointed or despaired.
It is more often found when we compare ourselves with other people who have similar age, length of time as a believer, and God-given duty as ourselves. If we do not have jealousy, when others are acknowledged and praised, we will rejoice as if we were acknowledged.
If I praise your children, is there any of you who will have discomfort in your mind thinking, 'My son or my daughter has this kind of weak point but senior pastor does not know it and praises him/her.
Or will you be heartbroken thinking, 'My child is praised, but I am not'? You will certainly be happy without thinking those things. You will be more thankful because your children are loved even though your children have some shortcomings.
But it is the heart of spirit to be thankful for everybody, not only about your own children or family members.
Also, in a mission group, if a person who was under us in rank gets love and recognition from others and becomes our leader, we should be thankful as if we ourselves are recognized, and be able to serve that person.
When you run a shop and if another shop next to you is selling well, you should not be disheartened or disappointed thinking that shop took your customers away.
You should rejoice with genuine heart that the other shop is doing well and at the same time pray to the Father that you will also receive blessings.
King Saul of Israel had a son called Jonathan. Jonathan loved David from the moment he met him, and they loved each other truly. However, in a fleshly sense, Jonathan could have considered David as an enemy.
The throne of his father Saul had to be passed down to him, but God appointed David as the king, so he could have thought that David took away his throne.
But Jonathan helped David and encouraged him when he was chased by Saul. 1 Samuel 23:16-17 says, "Saul's son Jonathan set out and came to David at Horesh; there he strengthened his hand through the LORD. [17] He said to him, 'Do not be afraid; for the hand of my father Saul shall not find you; you shall be king over Israel, and I shall be second to you; my father Saul also knows that this is so.'"
This is spiritual heart and heart of truth. When others take good things, we can rejoice in the same way, and if others suffer, we feel sorry and suffer in our heart together.
I urge you to get rid of jealousy and envy completely and rejoice with truth having a pure and genuine heart like children.
The next work of the flesh is outbursts of wrath.
Some people, raise their voice, curse at others, and even commit violence when they get angry. Sometimes, they kill other people.
As mentioned above, Saul, the first king of Israel, was jealous and envious of David so much. So he tried to kill David continuously. However, Saul's son Jonathan loved David and tried to save him at his best.
One day, Jonathan hid David from Saul. When Saul came to know this, he got so angry at Jonathan and poured out his evil on him.
1 Samuel 20:30 says, "Then Saul's anger was kindled against Jonathan. He said to him, "You son of a perverse, rebellious woman! Do I not know that you have chosen the son of Jesse to your own shame, and to the shame of your mother's nakedness?"
Still, Jonathan spoke for David, and Saul got even angrier and threw his spear at him to strike him.
He spoke out wicked words against his own wife and son and tried to kill his son. Just by considering this, we can see that Saul could not be saved.
Dear brothers and sisters, it is extremely difficult to find a person who does not have anger in this world.
It's not that those who seem to be meek do not have any anger. They just press it down within themselves.
So, they sometimes drink heavily, or what they have pressed down bursts out in certain kind of situation. Everybody has the root of anger like this, and so, even after they become God's children by believing in the Lord, they still have anger in them.
But I am not saying that you will not be saved just because you got angry for small things. Even if you get angry sometimes, you can repent in your deep heart and change yourself getting rid of your anger. But anyway, whether it is big or small, we have the sinful nature called anger, and because this might cause greater works of flesh that can lead us to death, we have to get rid of the original root of anger.
If our anger gets greater, and if we have the authority like Saul to burst out our anger freely, we might act evil just like Saul.
Today, we hear a lot of news about fearful incidents that are caused by anger. There was a person who killed another person who was talking on the public telephone for a long time.
There was another person who killed a woman whom he loved, because she looked down upon him. Recently, there was an article like the following.
There were brothers who became orphans at a young age. The older brother sent his younger brother to schools and supported him until he got married. They were such good brothers. But one day, they had a quarrel, and the younger one spoke some insulting words. The older one lost his control momentarily and beat his younger brother do death.
He immediately realized what he did and regretted, but it was already late.
People who commit this kind of evil would not usually think they can commit such an evil act due to their anger.
But we must not keep any sin, even though it is very small.
People have excuses when they get angry.
They say their counterpart bothered them, did something that cannot be understood, and did not act as they wanted. But you should realize that you get angry not because somebody does something to you but because you have evil and anger inside you.
Those who have no evil and are meek will not get angry even when others provoke them.
I urge you to pull out the root of anger and have meek and peaceable mind with everyone in any kind of situation.
But here, we should realize that righteous indignation and anger as a work of the flesh are different from each other. Jesus once rebuked the scribes and Pharisees saying, "You snakes, you brood of vipers! How can you escape being sentenced to hell?" Once, He overturned the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple.
This was not from evil anger.
It was righteous indignation coming from justice of God. When parents scold and hit their children with a rod, some parents shout at and hit their children being unable to control their anger.
This is certainly outburst of wrath and is not right in the sight of God.
But parents can be stern and strict, and rebuke their children although they love their children so much. It is to prevent them from falling to the bad way, and is very different from the work of the flesh. Proverbs 13:24 says, "Those who spare the rod hate their children, but those who love them are diligent to discipline them." As said, it is actually correct in God's sight.
I hope you can distinguish between these things.
The next works of the flesh are dissensions and heresies. Heresy here can also be faction.
'Dissension' is when a person who is supposed to be conforming to the whole group divides himself from the group to form another group, only because he does not like the main flow of the whole group. Of course, dividing from the group is not just having a better relationship with certain people having more fellowship with them than others.
It is rather natural to be closer and have more fellowship with those who have same opinions or standpoints.
But those who create dissensions alienate those who have different opinions or they harm others in order to achieve their goal. That is why it is considered a work of the flesh.
They form groups seeking their own, and blame or attack other people. They backbite, slander, and condemn others.
Finally, people will have excessive resentment against one another, so that they will have severe disputes and exclusion.
As said in Proverbs 18:1, "He who separates himself seeks [his own] desire, He quarrels against all sound wisdom," because they separated themselves seeking their own desire, they quarrel against wisdom and follow untruth.
In the Bible, Absalom, the son of David, created dissensions and separated himself seeking his own desire. From the moment Absalom made up his mind to take his father's throne, he began to steal the mind of people.
He estranged David from people as if David was not caring about them. He tried to make the people think that he understood the people's situations and could solve their problems.
As he gained people's mind to some extent, he won over some people to his side and rebelled.
He made schemes, created dissensions, and separated himself, but he could not gain what he wanted.
It seemed it was going well in the beginning, but he finally faced a miserable death. Because God turned His face away from him, he could not gain his desire even though he made such detailed plan.
In today's churches, there are many dissensions even among the believers who are called under the name of the Lord.
The head of all churches is Jesus Christ, and every church has a minister who practically manages the church.
And in the church, a person who has different opinions than the pastor gathers people who are similar to him and forms a synagogue of Satan.
They divide the groups saying they belong to somebody. They judge and condemn the pastor and other members.
After quarreling and fighting in divided groups, they finally separate themselves from the church.
If the shepherd guides the flock to the wrong way without knowing the truth, of course we have to correct him. But if we separate ourselves following our own desire even though the shepherd is not committing untruthful acts, we are bound to commit various evil acts and we will fall away from God.
It is all the same in mission groups and small groups.
If you selected somebody as the leader in the name of the Lord, you have to unite with him/her and accomplish the kingdom of God even though you think that leader lacks something.
I urge you to seek others' benefits in church and society, and embrace everybody with love and virtue not neglecting them, even though they have different opinions.
[Conclusion]
Dear brothers and sisters, a criminal under death sentence said he wanted to see his mother for the last time.
When the mother came to him, he did not comfort his mother or ask for forgiveness, but spoke out words of resentment. "Why did you just allow me when you saw me stealing my friend's toy when I was young? Why did you just leave me without rebuking me even when I did more evil things as I grew up? Because you did not scold me or rebuke me at those times, I finally became a condemned criminal."
These were his last words before he was executed.
Namely, the fleshly love of the mother who could not rebuke her son finally led him to the way of death.
It is the same spiritually. It is not easy for the preacher to point out people's sins.
If the preacher points out sins and tells the people to throw them away, some of the listeners might get offended, or some others might even say the preacher is too commanding.
But pointing out sins and guiding people to get rid of the sins is a matter of course for the church, as an ark of salvation, to lead the flock to the way of salvation.
If the church neglects pointing out the sins of its members, many people will be subject to judgment just like the worldly people even though they claim to believe.
As said in Ephesians 5:13, "but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light," the church has to rebuke the members about their sins so that they can repent and come out to light.
It is the true love to lead them to heaven in this way.
I hope you will not feel painful in your heart when you find out your evil through the message, but be more thankful and get rid of it more quickly.
I bless in the name of the Lord that you will come into spirit and the whole spirit more quickly, and become God's children who dwell in light and the love of the Father God. |
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